GB1536398A - Apparatus for the conveying and intermittent brief storage of cigarettes or other articles of rod form - Google Patents

Abstract

1536398 Endless conveyers; cigarette handling systems FOCKE & PFUHL 27 April 1977 [22 May 1976] 17469/77 Heading B8A A conveyer belt 12 is provided with article engaging members 15 which are movable into and out of the stream of articles conveyed. The members 15 are hollow and collapsible and can be inflated via apertures 18 in the belt. In their deflated or evacuated condition the members lie substantially flat against the belt by virtue of pre-folded lines 16 and the belt can move past the article stream without entraining it. The position of the member is controlled by selective connection of pressure or vacuum to air chests 19 disposed along the belt. A pair of belts 12, 13 in opposed relationship may be used to elevate a stream of cigarettes 10, the members 15 in their erect condition extending substantially across the gap between the belts. This enables the cigarette stream to be elevated by one belt while the other is stationary or moving against the cigarette flow but with its members 15 deflated. Cigarette handling systems.-As described a system of six conveyers 31 to 36, Fig. 7, are associated with three makers 21 to 23 and two packers 24, 25 and are arranged so as to provide five vertical conveying sections 26 to 30 each consisting of two opposed belt sections. Buffer stores for the cigarettes are provided by the upper horizontal and outer vertical runs of conveyer 31 and the upper horizontal run of conveyer 36 and by selective control of the positions of article engaging members on the belts it is possible to move cigarettes into or out of the stores. Figure 7 illustrates a situation in which packer 24 is shut down with part of the output of maker 22 and the output of maker 21 being moved to the left-hand buffer store.